GHC Versions for Travis-CI
MultipleThe purpose of this document is to describe how to set up the .travis.yml
script in order to build and test your cabalized Haskell package with multiple GHC configurations.
At time of writing Travis-CI has support for building Haskell packages but only for a single GHC configuration (i.e. Haskell Platform 2012.2.0.0 with GHC 7.4.1). By following this guide, you can set up Travis-CI jobs which have access to the following GHC versions (all compiled for Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS 64-bit):
- GHC 6.12.3,
- GHC 7.0.1, GHC 7.0.2, GHC 7.0.3, GHC 7.0.4,
- GHC 7.2.1, GHC 7.2.2,
- GHC 7.4.1, GHC 7.4.2,
- GHC 7.6.1, GHC 7.6.2, GHC 7.6.3,
- GHC 7.8.1, GHC 7.8.2, GHC 7.8.3, GHC 7.8.4
- GHC 7.10.1, GHC 7.10.2, GHC 7.10.3 (prerelease)
- GHC HEAD.
Each GHC version is provided in a separate ghc-<version>
.deb
package installing into /opt/ghc/<version>
(thus allowing to be installed at the same time if needed) published in a PPA. The easiest way to "activate" a particular GHC version is to prepend its bin
-folder to the $PATH
environment variable (see example in next section).
Note: For actually enabling continuous integration for a GitHub hosted project, see section Getting Started in Travis-CI's online documentation.
Add-on Packages
For convenience, a few add-on packages are available to provide more recent versions of cabal
, alex
and happy
than are available in Ubuntu 12.04.
They install into a respective /opt/<name>/<version>/bin
folder which can be put into the search $PATH
.
.deb Package Name |
Executable |
---|---|
cabal-install-1.16 |
/opt/cabal/1.16/bin/cabal |
cabal-install-1.18 |
/opt/cabal/1.18/bin/cabal |
cabal-install-1.20 |
/opt/cabal/1.20/bin/cabal |
cabal-install-1.22 |
/opt/cabal/1.22/bin/cabal |
cabal-install-head |
/opt/cabal/head/bin/cabal |
alex-3.1.3 |
/opt/alex/3.1.3/bin/alex |
alex-3.1.4 |
/opt/alex/3.1.4/bin/alex |
happy-1.19.3 |
/opt/happy/1.19.3/bin/happy |
happy-1.19.4 |
/opt/happy/1.19.4/bin/happy |
happy-1.19.5 |
/opt/happy/1.19.5/bin/happy |
See examples below for how to use those.
.travis.yml
(for container-based infrastructure)
Since 2015, Travis-CI is migrating build-jobs towards a contained-based infrastructure which requires a different way to setup the build-matrix in the first half of the .travis.yml
.
The following .travis.yml
snippet shows the different matrix
and
before_install
sections (relative to the non-container
.travis.yml
):
language: c
# explicitly request container-based infrastructure
sudo: false
matrix:
include:
- env: CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.6.3
addons: {apt: {packages: [cabal-install-1.16,ghc-7.6.3], sources: [hvr-ghc]}}
- env: CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.8.4
addons: {apt: {packages: [cabal-install-1.18,ghc-7.8.4], sources: [hvr-ghc]}}
- env: CABALVER=1.22 GHCVER=7.10.1
addons: {apt: {packages: [cabal-install-1.22,ghc-7.10.1],sources: [hvr-ghc]}}
- env: CABALVER=head GHCVER=head
addons: {apt: {packages: [cabal-install-head,ghc-head], sources: [hvr-ghc]}}
allow_failures:
- env: CABALVER=head GHCVER=head
before_install:
- export PATH=/opt/ghc/$GHCVER/bin:/opt/cabal/$CABALVER/bin:$PATH
.travis.yml
script generator
Caching dependencies & There's also a runghc
script provided in this repository to automate the generation of such a .travis.yml
script based on the tested-with:
property of your .cabal
file. Moreover, the generated script contains a simple caching logic which allows to cache build-dependencies between builds (as long as the install-plan doesn't change by e.g. new packages being available from Hackage).
The top-level tested-with:
field has a similiar syntax to the build-depends:
field but with compilers instead of packages. The script contains a list of known GHC versions and emits entries for all matching versions. Here are a few examples:
tested-with: GHC >= 7.4 && < 7.8
-- selects GHC 7.4.1, 7.4.2, 7.6.1, 7.6.2, and 7.6.3
tested-with: GHC == 7.4.2, GHC == 7.6.3, GHC == 7.8.4, GHC == 7.11.*
-- selects GHC 7.4.2, 7.6.3, 7.8.4, and GHC HEAD
If you need additional Ubuntu packages installed (e.g. alex-3.1.5
or libxml-dev
), you can pass the Ubuntu package names as additional commandline arguments after the .cabal
filename argument.
Known Issues
-
The container environment reports 16 cores, causing
cabal
's default configuration (jobs: $ncpus
) to run into the GHC #9221 bug which can result in longer build-times. This can be workarounded by commenting out thejobs: $ncpus
right aftercabal update
creates that file:install: # ... - travis_retry cabal update - sed -i 's/^jobs:/-- jobs:/' ${HOME}/.cabal/config # ...
.travis.yml
Template (for non-container-based infrastructure)
Below is a commented .travis.yml
example that can be used as a template:
# NB: don't set `language: haskell` here
# explicitly request legacy non-sudo based build environment
sudo: required
# The following enables several GHC versions to be tested; often it's enough to test only against the last release in a major GHC version. Feel free to omit lines listings versions you don't need/want testing for.
env:
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=6.12.3
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.0.1
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.0.2
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.0.3
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.0.4
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.2.1
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.2.2
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.4.1
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.4.2
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.6.1
- CABALVER=1.16 GHCVER=7.6.2
- CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.6.3
- CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.8.1 # see note about Alex/Happy for GHC >= 7.8
- CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.8.2
- CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.8.3
- CABALVER=1.18 GHCVER=7.8.4
- CABALVER=1.22 GHCVER=7.10.1
- CABALVER=1.22 GHCVER=7.10.2
- CABALVER=head GHCVER=head # see section about GHC HEAD snapshots
# Note: the distinction between `before_install` and `install` is not important.
before_install:
- travis_retry sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:hvr/ghc
- travis_retry sudo apt-get update
- travis_retry sudo apt-get install cabal-install-$CABALVER ghc-$GHCVER # see note about happy/alex
- export PATH=/opt/ghc/$GHCVER/bin:/opt/cabal/$CABALVER/bin:$PATH
install:
- cabal --version
- echo "$(ghc --version) [$(ghc --print-project-git-commit-id 2> /dev/null || echo '?')]"
- travis_retry cabal update
- cabal install --only-dependencies --enable-tests --enable-benchmarks
# Here starts the actual work to be performed for the package under test; any command which exits with a non-zero exit code causes the build to fail.
script:
- if [ -f configure.ac ]; then autoreconf -i; fi
- cabal configure --enable-tests --enable-benchmarks -v2 # -v2 provides useful information for debugging
- cabal build # this builds all libraries and executables (including tests/benchmarks)
- cabal test
- cabal check
- cabal sdist # tests that a source-distribution can be generated
# Check that the resulting source distribution can be built & installed.
# If there are no other `.tar.gz` files in `dist`, this can be even simpler:
# `cabal install --force-reinstalls dist/*-*.tar.gz`
- SRC_TGZ=$(cabal info . | awk '{print $2;exit}').tar.gz &&
(cd dist && cabal install --force-reinstalls "$SRC_TGZ")
For more information about the .travis.yml
script please consult the
official documentation.
Haskell Platform Configurations
Basic idea: Generate a cabal.config
file during the build job (before installing the build-dependencies) constraining to HP package versions, e.g. for HP 2013.2.0.0 the cabal.config
would need to contain the following constraints definition:
constraints: async==2.0.1.4,attoparsec==0.10.4.0,case-insensitive==1.0.0.1,cgi==3001.1.7.5,fgl==5.4.2.4,GLUT==2.4.0.0,GLURaw==1.3.0.0,haskell-src==1.0.1.5,hashable==1.1.2.5,html==1.0.1.2,HTTP==4000.2.8,HUnit==1.2.5.2,mtl==2.1.2,network==2.4.1.2,OpenGL==2.8.0.0,OpenGLRaw==1.3.0.0,parallel==3.2.0.3,parsec==3.1.3,QuickCheck==2.6,random==1.0.1.1,regex-base==0.93.2,regex-compat==0.95.1,regex-posix==0.95.2,split==0.2.2,stm==2.4.2,syb==0.4.0,text==0.11.3.1,transformers==0.3.0.0,unordered-containers==0.2.3.0,vector==0.10.0.1,xhtml==3000.2.1,zlib==0.5.4.1
Use this .travis.yml
script as a template if you want
to test against Haskell Platform configurations.
Alex & Happy with GHC โฅ 7.8
If your package (or one of its dependencies) contain Alex/Happy generated parsers, GHC 7.8.1 and later require a more recent alex
/happy
executable installed (see Happy, Alex, and GHC 7.8 for the gory details). The following snipped (stolen from lens
's .travis.yaml
) illustrates how to this can be accomplished:
- |
if [ $GHCVER = "head" ] || [ ${GHCVER%.*} = "7.8" ] || [ ${GHCVER%.*} = "7.10" ]; then
travis_retry sudo apt-get install happy-1.19.4 alex-3.1.3
export PATH=/opt/alex/3.1.3/bin:/opt/happy/1.19.4/bin:$PATH
else
travis_retry sudo apt-get install happy alex
fi
GHC HEAD Snapshots
-
Snapshots of current GHC development snapshots from the
master
branch (aka GHC HEAD) are uploaded at irregular intervals to the PPA -
You can select GHC HEAD at your own risk by setting
GHCVER=head
-
As GHC HEAD is experimental and likely to cause build failures, you might want to tolerate failures by adding the following snippet to your
.travis.yml
:matrix: allow_failures: - env: CABALVER=head GHCVER=head
-
NB: the line in
matrix.allow_failures.env
must match exactly (including any whitespace) the line specified inenv
Ideas for Additional Checks
- Check for code-smell via
hlint
- Check for
build-depends
excluding latest package versions withpackdeps
- Check for unused
build-depends
withpackunused
- Check for 100% Haddock coverage
- Check for trailing whitespaces and/or tabs in source files
Random Remarks
- If you want to know which core library version each GHC used (e.g. for deciding on what upper/lower bounds to declare for
build-depends
), see GHC Boot Library Version History - Supporting GHC versions prior to 7.0.1 requires more effort:
- GHC 7.0.1 was the first version to support
default-language: Haskell2010
- Declaring
cabal-version >= 1.10
makes it more difficult to compile with GHC 6.12.3's defaultcabal-install
cabal-install
falls back to top-down solver for GHC < 7 which may require additional tweaks to the build script to compensate for (e.g. installingQuickCheck
viacabal install --only-dep
is known to fail)
- GHC 7.0.1 was the first version to support